Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Flawed Science, Supported by the Government(s): "Promoting low-fat foods is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history"

Eat fat to get slim. Don’t fear fat; fat is your friend

— Dr Aseem Malhotra

Thirty years of official health advice urging people to adopt low-fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having “disastrous health consequences,”

writes Henry Bodkin on the front page of the Daily Telegraph, quoting a leading obesity charity.

“Eating fat does not make you fat,” argues a new report by the National
Obesity Forum (NOF) and the Public Health Collaboration, as they
demanded a major overhaul of official dietary guidelines.

The report says the
low-fat and low-cholesterol message, which has been official policy in
the UK since 1983, was based on “flawed science” and had resulted in an
increased consumption of junk food and carbohydrates.

The document also accuses major public health bodies of
colluding with the food industry, said the misplaced focus meant Britain
was failing to address an obesity crisis which is costing the NHS £6 billion a year.

The authors call for a return to “whole foods” such as meat, fish and dairy, as well as high-fat healthy foods like avocados.

The report, which has provoked a
broad backlash among the scientific community, also argues that
saturated fat does not cause heart disease while full fat dairy products
such as milk, yoghurt and cheese, can actually protect the heart.

Professor David Haslam, NOF chairman, said: “As a clinician treating
patients all day every day, I quickly realised that guidelines from on
high suggesting high carbohydrate, low-fat diets were the universal
panacea, where deeply flawed.

“Current efforts have failed, the proof being that obesity levels are
higher than they have ever been, and show no chance of reducing despite
the best efforts of government and scientists.”

Processed foods labelled “low-fat”, “lite”, “low cholesterol” should
be avoided at all costs and people with Type 2 diabetes should eat a
fat-rich diet rather than one based on carbohydrates, the report urges.

Dr Aseem Malhotra, consultant
cardiologist and member of the Public Health Collaboration, a group of
medics, said dietary guidelines promoting low-fat foods “is perhaps the
biggest mistake in modern medical history, resulting in devastating
consequences for public health”.

“Sadly this unhelpful advice continues to be perpetuated,” he said.

“The current Eatwell guide from Public Health England is in my view
more like a metabolic timebomb than a dietary pattern conducive for good
health.”

Dr Malhotra also suggested the scientific integrity of the PHE advice had been compromised by commercial interests.

“We must urgently change the message to the public to reverse obesity and Type 2 diabetes,” he added.

Snacking between meals is one of the main causes of the current
obesity crisis, the report argues, while added sugar should be avoided
because it has “no nutritional value whatsoever”.

Calorie counting is also a damaging
red herring when it comes to controlling obesity, said the NOF report,
as calories from different foods have “entirely different metabolic
effects on the human body, rendering that definition useless”.